This invention relates to intermediate-moisture foods and more particularly to a process for preparing intermediate-moisture animal or pet foods.
Intermediate-moisture or soft moist animal foods are well-known in the art and have achieved significant success in the market. Typically, these products will contain from 15 to 60% moisture by weight and yet are resistant to microbial or bacterial decomposition due to the presence of a sufficient amount of solute material which effects a rise in the osmotic pressure of the water in which they are dissolved to achieve bacteriostasis. It is also commonplace to add an antimicrobial material to insure that the product is kept in a bacteriologically free state.
The meaty and/or vegetable materials which comprise the basic matric for intermediate-moisture animal or pet foods must be cooked to some degree to obtain a pasteurization or initial kill of any bacteria present in the source components. Generally, the art has resorted to techniques such as autoclave, extrusion cooking, steam retorting, and the like to achieve this degree of cook. It is recognized in the art, however, that too extensive a retention time in any cooking apparatus or utilization of stringent temperature and pressure conditions for the cooking may result in the decreased palatability of these products.
Deep fat frying of course is well-known in the art and possesses certain known advantages, especially in the speed with which the cooking can be achieved. However, such a process has not been heretofore proposed in the production of intermediate-moisture shelf-stable products. Indeed, the significant dehydration effects inherent in deep fat frying was believed to be detrimental to the intermediate moisture character of such foods. More importantly, the submersion of intermediate-moisture foods in a deep fat frying medium held at relatively high temperatures was expected to effect an infusion and/or replacement of the moisture and/or preserving ingredients within the intermediate-moisture food with the oil or fat of the frying process and to therefore alter the delicate stability requirements requisite for achieving shelf stability without resort to sterilization or refrigeration.